C
HAPTER
3
“I
’ve taken steps to find a place for Alabama and me,” Gladys announced.
Bev was only beginning to come to terms with those words when her mother added, “I don’t belong here with all these old people, any more than Wink did.”
“Who’s Wink?” Bev asked.
“He choked on a tomato,” Alabama said, curled up in a wingback chair. “He might not be dead. We don’t know.”
Gladys fidgeted with the clasp of her purse. “We know that he was full of life, and energy, and this place choked the life out of him.”
“It sounds like it was the tomato’s fault,” Bev said. “A person can choke to death anywhere. You can’t blame The Villas for that.”
“He was still breathing when they took him away,” Alabama insisted. “They stuck a tube in his throat. He might still be alive.”
“They’d have told us if he was.” Dressed in her best blue suit and square-toed navy pumps, Gladys paced across the living room, popping Tums from the half-unraveled roll in her fist.
Why was she so dressed up? Bev wondered.
“That’s how they operate here,” her mother continued. “When one goes, they don’t say anything about it—just hope the senile old folks don’t notice that the herd’s been thinned.”
“Mama! I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“Yes it is. Of course, you can hardly blame them for not making a fuss. If the management stopped to acknowledge every passing, this place would take on the feel of a nonstop wake.” She paused, shaking her head. “But even so, Wink was special.”
So special that she’d never mentioned him before. Bev still couldn’t place him. Unless . . . “Was he that man in the colored pants?”
Alabama nodded.
Bev had seen him around and ridden on the elevator with him once—he’d whistled “Mairzy Doats” for three floors, then told her a corny joke as she was trying to get off. She remembered him clamping a liver-spotted hand against the elevator’s door to keep it from sliding shut on his punch line.
He’d reminded her of an old supper club comedian. Certainly not the kind of personality Gladys usually admired. She wondered if her mother’s mind was transferring her grief from Diana’s death to Wink’s.
“He was an essential part of the community here,” Gladys said. “Full of vitality. And now he’s”—shaky fingers freed another chalky tablet—“gone.”
“Mama, just because an elderly gentleman died here doesn’t mean that you should move out.”
“Maybe not the way you see it, but from my perspective, that’s exactly what it means. And this time I’m not going to let myself be railroaded by you, which is what landed me here in the first place.”
Railroaded! When, in the old days, Gladys had called her several times a week, sometimes several times per day, upset and complaining that she couldn’t take care of a house and yard anymore? When she had barely been able to hobble up her own front stairs? When she’d phoned The Villas to request a tour of it herself? “That’s revisionist history if I’ve ever heard it,” Bev said.
Gladys, still pacing, didn’t seem to be listening. “I was easily persuaded then. I’d had that knee replacement, and besides, I didn’t know any better. This time I’ve taken steps. Now I see that these places are like those roach motels you see on television, you check in but—”
Bev didn’t let her finish. “What steps? What are you talking about?”
“I’ve called Woodrow. He said he could take Alabama and me house hunting this afternoon.”
House hunting? “
This afternoon?
What time is he coming?”
“Around noon. He’s taking Alabama and me out to look at some properties.”
Bev waited for her to say “You can come, too,” but she didn’t. Being left out stung, but she tried not to show it. “Mama, I drove up here today to see if we could get some things settled with Brenda. She called me yesterday and—”
“They will be settled. Alabama and I are moving.”
Bev glanced over at Alabama, who was smiling complacently at the ceiling. She wore a pair of red shorts and a T-shirt with shoulder pads, which Bev supposed was her version of dressing up. She was all ready for her day of house touring with Woodrow, an old family friend Bev hadn’t seen in decades.
“Woodrow must be eighty by now,” Bev said.
Her mother eyed her sharply. “He still has his realtor’s licence.
He
hasn’t been put out to pasture yet. And he says he’s looking forward to meeting my granddaughter.”
Gladys and Alabama exchanged a smile.
A spike of something unfamiliar, or long buried, rose in her chest. A sharp, hurtful stab like a thorn in her heart. Back in the day, Diana had always managed to charm their mother despite being irresponsible and troublesome. Bev might have been the daughter who stayed closer, but she had never been her mother’s favorite.
She tried to shake off the feeling. Alabama was not Diana. Grandchildren were different from children.
“But if you want to make yourself useful while you’re here,” her mother said, “then you can run me out to the drugstore. I’m almost out of Tums. We’ve got about enough time to get there and back before Woodrow arrives.”
“All right,” Bev agreed. “Maybe we should take my car, though. It’s right out front.” She hated navigating the crazy Dallas traffic in her mother’s land yacht.
They left Alabama at the apartment in case Woodrow showed up early. Alabama was not the best candidate for a greeter—she barely spoke and she didn’t know Woodrow. But the opportunity to be alone with her mother for a few moments stopped Bev from voicing these doubts. They hadn’t talked in private since Alabama’s arrival.
As they drove to the drugstore, though, every time Bev tried to bring up the subject of the move and how ill-advised it would be, Gladys cut her off or changed the subject. She spent precious time fiddling with the air-conditioning knobs in Bev’s car and scolding her for not buying American. “You should get yourself a Buick instead of this tuna can. The Japanese aren’t up to the job of cooling off cars in a Texas summer.”
“Mama—”
“Now don’t say that’s racist,” her mother argued, before Bev could say anything at all. “I ask you, does the mercury ever top a hundred degrees in Tokyo?”
Bev frowned. “I don’t know.”
Did it?
“I’m sure their engineers make allowances . . .”
As her thoughts scurried down the mental maze her mother had laid for her, she stopped herself and took a deep breath.
“Have you told The Villas that you intend to move out?” Bev asked, directing them back on track. “Please say no.”
“Why should you want me to say no? Why shouldn’t I leave that place? Life is short—look at what happened to Diana. Unless . . .” Gladys frowned. “It
was
an accident, don’t you think?”
They hadn’t had a chance to really talk about Diana’s death until now. It wasn’t something they wanted to discuss in front of Alabama. For weeks, Bev had been itching to unburden her doubts on the matter to someone. But now, seeing the sadness and the worry in her mother’s eyes, the doubts wouldn’t form on her lips. “The coroner said she’d had a lot to drink. And you know Diana. There was a whole bottle of Seconal in the apartment, unopened. If she’d wanted to kill herself, she wouldn’t have needed to jump in front of a truck.”
For some reason, the words seemed to give her mother comfort. “And there was no note,” Gladys pointed out.
Bev nodded. “She probably just wasn’t paying attention.”
“Poor Alabama. It would be terrible for her if . . .” Gladys shook her head. “Well, as you say, it was an accident. Had to be.”
If they hadn’t been in bucket seats, Bev would have hugged her. Losing Diana so suddenly had devastated her mother. She never laughed now, rarely even smiled. Diana might have stayed far away, but her mother had always tried to keep track of her, and Bev knew that she’d been draining her savings to keep Diana afloat all these years. Gladys loved Diana, her baby, so much, she would have given her anything.
Small wonder she wanted to cling to Alabama now.
For a moment, Bev thought her mother was going to cry, but instead she twisted in her seat as they approached the pharmacy’s parking lot. “Careful to turn in correctly, Bev—the spaces are slanty. Last time you went in the wrong way and we ended up parked all woppy-jawed.”
Inside the drugstore, Gladys debated what size container of antacids to get, finally deciding on the economy-sized tub.
“If you need a vat of antacids to get through the day, there’s something wrong,” Bev pointed out. “We should get you a doctor’s appointment.”
“I’m fine. I have a sour stomach, is all. Besides, pill for pill, this size is cheaper. No sense tossing money away.”
Bev lugged the container up to the counter for her. When it was their turn at the register, she reached into her purse to grab some money to pay and dug around, searching for the ten-dollar bill she was certain she’d put there this morning. “I can’t find the change I got from the gas station.” She snapped open her coin purse in hopes that she’d stuck it there.
Where had it gone?
Gladys produced a bill from her own pocketbook. “You don’t have to pay for my things. I’m not a child.” She paid and marched out of the store, purse clutched under one arm, opaque plastic jar under the other.
Bev remained so distracted by the loss of the ten dollars that she almost forgot why she’d wanted to talk to her mother alone until they were almost home.
“I wish you would rethink this moving business, Mama. In fact, I wish you would rethink the whole idea of keeping Alabama with you. You don’t know what a handful teenagers are.”
“I don’t?” Gladys crowed. “And how many children have
you
raised?”
“I meant teenagers nowadays,” she amended quickly. “I do know something on that subject.”
“You might think that I’m too old to deal with a teenager, that I won’t have the energy to pay attention. But my life is settled, while you’ve got your job and a house to deal with, and some man friend to claim your attention.”
Derek claimed less of her attention than she would have liked, actually—although she wasn’t sure she should tell her mother that. Her mother always looked askance at Bev’s relationships, sure they would never amount to anything. But part of the reason Bev suspected Derek hadn’t popped the question yet was because they were both older and settled in their ways. Maybe he needed a little help envisioning them as a family.
They traveled a few blocks in silence. “I see what you’re trying to do,” Gladys said. “You want to seize this opportunity to rewrite history.”
Bev gripped the steering wheel tighter. “That is
so wrong
.”
“Is it? All these years, I’ve watched how that business with Diana affected you.”
“How?”
“Like last year, when you tossed away a perfectly good boyfriend . . . what was his name?”
“Glen? Glen wasn’t ‘perfectly good.’ He had his faults.”
“Who hasn’t, for Pete’s sake? But he wasn’t exactly like Tom, was he? And now, with Alabama. You still want what Diana had.”
“Have you forgotten, Mama?” It was hard to keep from shouting. “What Diana had was mine!”
Her mother turned her head, staring out at the passing road.
Bev gulped in several breaths to calm herself. “I’m offering to take Alabama in because I feel terrible for what’s happened, and because it’s the only thing that makes sense. For all of us.”
“I don’t agree. She’s my grandchild, and you . . .” Gladys hesitated. “You’re too conflicted.”
The car’s interior felt so blistering hot Bev could hardly stand it. Maybe her mother had a point about Toyotas and air-conditioning. But she was way off base when it came to her own family. “You think I’m so unhinged about my little sister that I’m going to take it out on Alabama?”
Gladys squinted at her. “A girl going through what Alabama’s going through now needs time, and love.”
“You think I can’t show love?” Bev asked.
“I didn’t say that. It’s just you can be forceful . . . and, it has to be said, a tad judgmental. Children need understanding.”
Bev mashed the brake pedal to keep from running the red light at the entrance to The Villas. When Bev and Diana had been growing up, Gladys had been overworked and short on patience, and she’d run their house with all the understanding and love of an office manager. Now she was acting as if she were Dr. Spock, Judy Blume, and Captain Kangaroo all rolled into one cuddly, grandma-shaped package.
Gladys twisted toward the center of the seat to grab her antacid jug. She struggled with the top. “Why oh why do they make everything so darn hard to open now?”
That was so like her mother. Lob an incendiary comment in one breath and change the subject in the next.
You’re demented when it comes to your sister and incapable of love. Where are my Tums?
Bev’s arms shook against the steering wheel. She felt . . .
Demented.
“Oh good,” Gladys said as they sailed up the drive to The Villas. “That’s Woodrow’s car pulling in now. Just drop me off, Bev. No need for you to come in.”
The first thing Bev did after her drive home from Dallas was head for the kitchen, where she poured herself a Crystal Light lemonade from the ice-cold pitcher. After a long gulp, she considered her options, reached into the cabinet above the fridge, hauled down the vodka bottle, and upended a few glugs into her glass.
Better.
Usually when she came back from visiting her mother it was evening already, but today she’d driven up and basically turned right back around and come home. The entire return trip, all the things she could have said—should have said—tumbled through her mind. Too late. It was so frustrating. She couldn’t believe she’d sat there and listened to her mother talk about her as if she lacked sympathy and understanding. Why, she was so understanding it was practically a handicap. She was helping kids all the time at school, the ones who came to her with problems during her conference time. Of course, she wasn’t always able to
do
much for these kids. Time remained the surest remedy for most afflictions of adolescence. But she was there for them. She listened, she understood.